Don’t let the early spring showers and sunbeams fool you — those long-awaited frost-free days of summer are still a good few weeks away. But for those of us that can’t wait to fill our planters with something pretty in the meantime, this is the perfect project for beautifying your containers. For early spring, the key is using plants that are cold-tolerant. Here, we used pansies, which are one of the only plants which are hardy enough to handle varied springtime conditions, along with pussywillow branches which. Pussywillows are easy to find along ditches and at the edge of the woods – get out your pruners and snip some free branches!
Let’s start planting!
You may already know that the ‘tried and true’ composition for a show-stopping planter design includes a thriller, a filler and a spiller.
- The thriller being the attention-grabber, and visual anchor for the pot — the large pussy willow branches in this case.
- The filler is a mid-height component that fills out the design — our shorter pussy willows twigs play this role nicely.
- And, finally, and the spiller effectively spills down and trails over the pot’s edge — that’s where the pansies come in. And while these varieties of pansies won’t truly spill out of the planter, the pop of colour near the bottom provides an element of contrast.
With these three components working together, you have a cohesive design that is pleasing to the eye. The result is a fresh and joyful spring planter that will withstand whatever weather spring throws at us — perfect for spring!
Words + photos by Sarah Carson @the.botanical